Mellman - trolling for clients

Mark Mellman's got a piece in The Hill today talking about the fundamentals that will determine the 2008 presidential winner. He concludes that Basics look good for Dems in '08 Some of this reads as real wishful thinking masquerading as analysis.

I am something of a fundamentalist — not religiously, but when it comes to presidential politics.

In presidential campaigns, fundamentals — incumbency, war and peace, the economy — matter most. While the fundamentals cost John Kerry the ’04 election, they bode well for the Democratic nominee in 2008.

As professor James Campbell wrote, “The fundamentals are the cards dealt to the candidates. … In general, the candidate dealt the stronger hand wins. … All … of these fundamentals favored President Bush in 2004.” But 2008 already looks much different.

Fundamentals. As in "it doesn't matter who's actually running."

Since 1948, seven candidates, including Bush, have been incumbents seeking a second term for their party. Only one lost.

But the odds are quite different when non-incumbents are trying to extend their parties’ control past two terms — the situation confronting Republicans in 2008. Since 1948, there have been five such instances and the in party has won only once.

In the first place, why go back to 1948? Is there something magical about 60 years, as opposed to 72 or 48? He's cherry-picking end-points to make a statistical case that can't be made with a different sample size. Maybe there's some inherent reason, maybe something changed 60 years ago to make it hard for a party to extend past two terms in the White House, but he's not made any kind of case for it - he's just chosen the end-points to make his argument.

(Obviously, something did change, but it changed in 1951 with the adoption of the XXII amendment limiting Presidents to two terms, and has been a factor only twice, 1988 when the incumbent party extended its hold on the White House, and 2000, when it failed to.)

Secondly, and more important, is the fact that each election is different, and a couple of those failures were in significant circumstances that cannot expect to be repeated. So let's look at them.

1960 - Sitting vice-president Nixon is defeated (or not) by Kennedy.
1968 - Sitting vice-President Hubert Humphrey, at the height of unrest and dissatisfaction over the war in Vietnam, running because President Johnson's popularity had fallen to the point where he was not re-electable, loses to former VP Nixon. Many on the Democratic side will try to make the case that there will be significant 2008 parallels to this election, with a long-term, unpopular war dragging on overseas. I don't see it.

• There's no draft.


• This war started with major attacks on US soil.


• As much as the media tries to play up casualty counts, what's happening overseas now is just not comparable to what was happening then, never mind the fact that we don't have major unrest on the streets right now, and are unlikely to in 3 years.

1976 - Watergate. 'Nuff said
1988 - Despite a second-term scandal (Iran-Contra - whatever you think about what actually took place, the media certainly played it as a scandal) and a candidate who had a great resume but not a great persona, and trouble with "the vision thing," the Republicans held the White House.
2000 - Well, most of the Democrats will tell you that they actually kept the White House in 2000. I don't agree, but there's no question that it was an exceptionally close race, and that Gore had more counted votes in the country than Bush did. It's difficult to see how the 2000 election, with the Clinton Scandal fatigue, the complete lack of Gore charisma, and the economy that was clearly a) slowing and b) getting ready to pop a bubble, bodes ill for the Republicans' chances in 2008.

The economy is another fundamental. In 2004, it was not bad enough to oust an incumbent. In the first half of 2004, real gross domestic product grew by 3.3 percent, putting it just below the middle of the pack for the 15 elections since 1948. In 1980, when Jimmy Carter became the only incumbent to be defeated for a second term since we’ve had such economic statistics, that number was negative 8.1 percent.

I don't know how to break it to him, but George H. W. Bush was an incumbent defeated for a second term, and the real GDP growth in 1992 was significantly higher than negative 8.1 %.

Economic forecasts are notoriously inaccurate, but the growth rates predicted for 2008 range between 2.0 percent and 3.3 percent. Thus, no one is forecasting an economy better than it was in ’04 and many predict it will be worse.

I believe that "economic forecasts are notoriously inaccurate," but "no one" is forecasting economic improvement? Pardon me while I scoff. Maybe none of Mark Mellman's economic heroes are, but I'm skeptical that "no one" is. And whatever anyone's predicting right now, it bears repeating that, as he's said and I've already agreed, "economic forecasts are notoriously inaccurate."

In the instance when a non-incumbent trying for a third party term was victorious, the growth rate was well above those forecasts — 5.1 percent in 1988. Republicans can’t count on the economy to help them in ’08, and it is more likely to be a drag on their ticket.

Whether they can count on the economy to help them or not, I don't think that there's any question that they can't count on the reporting on the economy to help them. On the other hand, it's unlikely that the media will manage to portray the 2008 economy much worse than they portrayed the 2004 economy...

War is another fundamental. Several recent columns dealt with this topic, and I will not belabor the analysis. Suffice it to say that majorities now believe the war was not worth the cost and that we are no longer making real progress.

But in 3 years, if we've got, say, Germany levels of troops still in Iraq, and Iraq's running itself, and the bombings are monthly instead of weekly, and Assad's fallen in Syria, will this be the case? If someone's fighting to make the case every day during a campaign instead of letting the opposition and media run basically unopposed, as has happened for the last 8 months, will it still be the case? Again, allow me to express a healthy skepticism.

In advocating his reelection, Bush could argue that we should not change horses in the midst of a war. In ’08, we will be changing horses no matter who is elected. Moreover, history suggests that drawn-out wars have a negative impact on the parties that undertook them; witness Adlai Stevenson during Korea and Hubert Humphrey in the midst of Vietnam.

Again with the Vietnam comparisons. It's not going to work - the situations are far more different than similar.

Finally, there are the candidates. Of course, we do not yet know who they will be.

Right. We don't. I suspect that it matters.

We are certain though that the Republican nominee will not be as well-known as Bush or even Vice President Cheney.

Kerry suffered from an asymmetry of information. Each new impression constituted a huge percentage of what people knew about him.

No, Kerry suffered from an asymmetry of unlikeability. Each new impression was negative. Bill Clinton suffered that same "asymmetry of information" but won. Bill Clinton was upbeat, charismatic, likeable. (Not by me, but by enough voters.) Kerry's a snobbish bore, an effete elistist snob, and it showed in everything he said or did. Consequently, Bill Clinton defeated a vulnerable incumbent, and John Kerry failed to.

By contrast, every new piece of information about Bush was a relatively small share of voters’ storehouse of knowledge about the president. As a result, it was much easier for the Republicans to paint a negative portrait of Kerry than it was for Democrats to raise Bush’s unfavorables.

The reason that it was much easier for the Republicans to "paint a negative portrait of Kerry" was that he was a horrible candidate. If he's nominated in 2008, he'll lose again. Because he'll still be a horrible candidate.

In 2008, the Democrat will not suffer from that asymmetry. Both candidates will have a roughly equivalent chance to define themselves and their opponent.

Really? Regardless of who it is? How much room is there, really, for definition in a race between Hillary Clinton and John McCain?

Sadly, I have not been endowed with the gift of prophecy.

Frankly, a lot of this makes me question how much of a gift of hindsight he has...

But the fundamentals suggest a great opportunity for the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008 — whoever that might be.

Let me say this - there's a great opportunity for a good Democratic candidate to win the presidency against a bad Republican candidate. It's almost as good as a good Republican candidate's opportunity to win the White House against a bad Democratic candidate. How's that for prophecy?